Steps 3 and 4 to mastering business IT disruption: Testing and reviewing your disruption-avoidance plan

So here you are with a solid How-We’ll-Stay-In-Business-Plan. Time to relax, right?

Well, not quite — although this is the point at which many stop paying attention to their disruption-avoidance plan.

Step 3 to mastering business IT disruption requires that you test your plan often. This is essential because change has a way of sneaking up on organizations, and those changes can upend your carefully laid plan to overcome disruptions. Fortunately, the right service provider will include regular testing in the price of your service.

Step 4 to mastering business IT disruption — regularly conduct a comprehensive plan review — is based on the same principle of keeping an eye on change.

At least once a year, you should review your plan top to bottom and adapt it to reflect changes in your organization. This involves

Updating your data backup/replication policies to incorporate changes and then testing for backup/recovery efficiency and accuracy,

Testing/verifying the functionality of your hardware and applications, and

Testing/verifying the effectiveness of your recovery protocols and processes in the face of business changes.

The right service provider can help you with expert analysis, testing, and verification capabilities that ensure your IT infrastructure continues to be sufficiently resilient.